Yearly Archives: 2014

Then, peach pits. Today, cookies.

Posted on by The Old Wolf

I look forward with anticipation each year for the knock at the door (one of very, very few I will respond to if it’s a solicitor) from cute little girl scouts selling cookies. I could make myself ill on Samoas.

But the cookies are a fairly modern innovation. In earlier days, the young ladies did their part in other ways.

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Here we see three young girl scouts collecting peach pits for the war effort (World War I, so the photo would have been dated around 1917-1918.)

I first saw this image posted at reddit (/r/historyporn) posted by /u/texanwill. The Corbis Images shot can be found here.

Caption: Girl Scouts collecting peach seeds during WWI. The oil from the seed was used for war industries. Undated Photo, Ca 1917-1918

Redditor /u/davidhaslhof posted this interesting quote which explains why peach pits were of value:

The three WWI gas masks in our collection tell the tale of the first widespread use of chemical warfare in modern day history. Tear gas (xylyl bromide) was previously seen in other confrontations but it was the quick escalation to deadly gases like chlorine, phosgene, and mustard gas that caused panic among troops on all sides. Though the gas masks of different armies varied slightly, the concept was the same, charcoal and anti-gas chemicals were combined in the filter found in the mouthpiece. In the US, peach pits were collected as they could be harvested for charcoal. The Girl Scouts pictured here are doing their part by appealing to the nation, “You save peach seeds – they will save soldiers lives.

Everyone pitched in during the two World Wars, including girl scouts and boy scouts.

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During World War I, Scouts sold more than $355 million worth of Liberty Loan bonds and war savings stamps. Photo:  Boy Scouts of America.

The Old Wolf has spoken.

Happy 40th, Ernő Rubik!

Posted on by The Old Wolf

Today’s Google Doodle includes an electronic, interactive Rubik’s cube for visitors to solve. It hardly seems possible that 40 years have passed since Hungarian sculptor and architect Ernő Rubik invented his amazing Rubik’s Cube. Part of this may be because it didn’t really become popular in the USA until after 1980. I remember being fascinated by this contraption, and became fairly proficient at one method of solving it. At least I could get it back into shape. I later acquired a whole slew of related puzzles – a 4×4 cube, a smaller “pocket” 2×2 cube, a Pyramid, Alexander’s Star, and many others. Decades have now passed, I’ve forgotten how to solve these quickly, although solutions exist on the internet, and most of the puzzles have been sold off or given to other owners.

Rubik's_Cube_cropped Standard Rubik’s Cube

51XAMCKTPEL Rubik’s 4×4 cube

41utg5eJeVLRubik’s 2×2 “Pocket” cube

Rubiks_snake_octahedron Rubik’s Snake

download Rubik’s Hat

Unique-Rubiks-Cubes-03-Pyramid-Cube Rubik’s Pyramid

Z0010015 Alexander’s Star

RubikShellsBack Rubik’s Shells. This devilish contraption involved getting all the balls of one color into their proper hemisphere. If that weren’t hard enough, once you had solved the first level, you could press a button on one side of each shell which locked half of it (and the button was impossible to release, so once it was down, it was down forever.) This made the puzzle orders of magnitude more difficult. I was never able to solve the easiest level.

 

01nest       Tony Fisher’s Nesting Cubes

More variations of this puzzle have been manufactured than I can count. Some of them are devilish beyond imagination.

I have (and have had) a few others, not necessarily Rubik-inspired but intriguing just the same.

brain

This one, made by Mag-Nif, is called “The Brain.” The object is to get all eight ears sticking out (or brought back in). It looks virtually impossible as you play with it, but all you have to do is count upward in Binary, with each tab representing a position in the binary string 00000000. The image above represents 00000001. Once you get the hang of the sequence, you can do it behind your back (I’ve done it.)

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The above abomination is a version (mine is slightly different) of the nine linked rings puzzle (jiulianhuan or 九连环)—also called “Chinese rings”. It also works in a somewhat binary fashion, with the object being to get the wand off of the chain of rings. In order to work the puzzle, you need to work the wand up and down the ladder in a sequence reminiscent of the word puzzle involving a farmer with a boat who wants to get a fox, a goose, and some grain across the river, but the boat will only hold two things. Again, once the sequence is determined, it becomes a fairly brainless procedure, but it’s maddening if you don’t know how it works.

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This one is called “Luminations,” and it’s not available any longer except on eBay and other such places. It has four start positions, depending on which vertex is pointing up when the beast is turned on, each one more difficult than the last. the object is to get all four vertices glowing red; every time you rotate the puzzle, the vertices change color in a set pattern from off, to green, to yellow, to red. It’s one of my favorites.

I’ve had so many similar puzzles over time, and they were wonderful time-wasters (and brain teasers) during an age when the Internet was not available. That, and books, were my time-sinks. As I said, many of these puzzles have now found new homes, but I still pull out the ones I have occasionally and see if I can remember how to work them. Rubik was a master, and his puzzles have entertained many a mind for many an hour.

But before Rubik, there was Piet Hein, author of the famous/infamous “Grooks,” and he invented Soma Cubes. These were, in their own way, just as clever – my father had a couple of sets of these that he had made himself, and I recall spending hours playing with them.

Soma-cube-disassembled Soma Cubes, Disassembled

Soma-cube-assembled Soma Cubes, Assembled

According to Wikipedia, Hein invented these cubes while listening to a lecture on quantum mechanics by Heisenberg. I should have such a mind. Most of the Wiki article is beyond me; I can conjugate Latin verbs far more easily than I can comprehend mathematical stuff. But I remember my father’s sets, so I was reminded of them as I thought about puzzles.

The Old Wolf has spoken.

Gordonton, NC – July, 1939

Posted on by The Old Wolf

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Country store on dirt road. Sunday afternoon. July 1939. Gordonton, North Carolina. Kerosene pump on the right and gasoline pump on the left. Rough, unfinished timber posts have been used as supports for porch roof. Brother of store owner stands in doorway. Photo by Dorothea Lange. Found at /r/historyporn, posted by /u/texanwill.

One family took photos of what this area looks like now, you can see them at Panoramio; photos by coleimage. Below: Country Store No. 2.

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The Old Wolf has spoken.

Gluten Sensitivity? Only if you *really* have Celiac disease.

Posted on by The Old Wolf

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I have reblogged this article from Business Insider for the benefit of those who can’t see the article with NoScript. Apparently this page embeds 16 tons worth of trackers and scripts. Note: There are more links in the original article which are worth following; I have included only two.

16Tons

Researchers Who Provided Key Evidence For Gluten Sensitivity Have Now Thoroughly Shown That It Doesn’t Exist

by Jennifer Welsh

In one of the best examples of science working, a researcher who provided key evidence of (non-celiac disease) gluten sensitivity recently published follow-up papers that show the opposite.

The first follow-up paper came out last year in the journal Gastroenterology. Here’s the backstory that makes us cheer:

The study was a follow up on a 2011 experiment in the lab of Peter Gibson at Monash University. The scientifically sound — but small — study found that gluten-containing diets can cause gastrointestinal distress in people without celiac disease, a well-known autoimmune disorder triggered by gluten.

They called this non-celiac gluten sensitivity.

Gluten is a protein composite found in wheat, barley, and other grains. It gives bread its chewiness and is often used as a meat substitute. If you’ve ever had “wheat meat,” seitan, or mock duck at a Thai restaurant, that’s gluten.

Gluten is a big industry: 30% of people want to eat less gluten. Sales of gluten-free products are estimated to hit $15 billion by 2016.

Although experts estimate that only 1% of Americans — about 3 million people — suffer from celiac disease, 18% of adults now buy gluten-free foods.

Since gluten is a protein found in any normal diet, Gibson was unsatisfied with his finding. He wanted to find out why the gluten seemed to be causing this reaction and if there could be something else going on. He therefore went to a scientifically rigorous extreme for his next experiment, a level not usually expected in nutrition studies.

For a follow-up paper, 37 self-identified gluten-sensitive patients were tested. According toReal Clear Science’s Newton Blog, here’s how the experiment went:

Subjects would be provided with every single meal for the duration of the trial. Any and all potential dietary triggers for gastrointestinal symptoms would be removed, including lactose (from milk products), certain preservatives like benzoates, propionate, sulfites, and nitrites, and fermentable, poorly absorbed short-chain carbohydrates, also known asFODMAPs. And last, but not least, nine days worth of urine and fecal matter would be collected. With this new study, Gibson wasn’t messing around.

The subjects cycled through high-gluten, low-gluten, and no-gluten (placebo) diets, without knowing which diet plan they were on at any given time. In the end, all of the treatment diets — even the placebo diet — caused pain, bloating, nausea, and gas to a similar degree. It didn’t matter if the diet contained gluten. (Read more about the study.)

“In contrast to our first study … we could find absolutely no specific response to gluten,” Gibson wrote in the paper. A third, larger study published this month has confirmed the findings.

It seems to be a “nocebo” effect — the self-diagnosed gluten sensitive patients expected to feel worse on the study diets, so they did. They were also likely more attentive to their intestinal distress, since they had to monitor it for the study.

On top of that, these other potential dietary triggers — specifically the FODMAPS – could be causing what people have wrongly interpreted as gluten sensitivity. FODMAPS are frequently found in the same foods as gluten. That still doesn’t explain why people in the study negatively reacted to diets that were free of all dietary triggers.

You can go ahead and smell your bread and eat it too. Science. It works.

Bitches. [1]
Note: While Celiac disease is a real and well-known condition, “gluten sensitivity” and eating gluten-free seems to be the latest fad, along with green coffee beans and garcinia cambogia

[1] With thanks to Richard Dawkins

Colored School at Anthoston

Posted on by The Old Wolf

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Seen at Library of Congress

Colored School at Anthoston.
Census 27, enrollment 12, attendance 7. Teacher expects 19 to be enrolled after work is over. “Tobacco keeps them out and they are short of hands.” Ages of those present: 13 years = 1, 10 years = 2, 8 years = 2, 7 years = 1, 5 years = 1. Location: Henderson County, Kentucky

There appears to be no information regarding photographer or date, but it’s an intriguing photo.

The Old Wolf has spoken.

False memory syndrome

Posted on by The Old Wolf

I recently came across a fascinating article entitled “The Reykjavik Confessions: The mystery of why six people admitted roles in two murders – when they couldn’t remember anything about the crimes.” One of my facebook friends described this piece thusly:

“If you like Nordic noir, it doesn’t come much more Nordic or more noir than this. But it turns out to be a story of what interrogations can do to people, and why they may end up admitting to crimes they never committed.”

This article resonated strongly with me, due to two experiences in the days of my youth. I still think of them with discomfort.

Polygraph simpson

When I first moved out West from the East Coast, I stayed with my grandmother before starting university. My family knew I was interested in collecting coins; at some point a keychain which featured a Morgan dollar went missing from an aunt’s house and I was immediately accused of having taken it. The pressure from family members was so intense that I, at the tender and callow age of 19 actually began to wonder if I had committed a crime and suppressed the memory. Despite my sincere protestations, my grandmother used every possible emotional club in her arsenal, and she had heavy weaponry, to get me to confess to having taken this trinket. Naturally, I knew nothing about it. Some time later, the item in question turned up in the pocket of a nail apron used by my uncle (who by this time had passed away.) My aunt was profuse in her apologies, but my grandmother never even mentioned it again, going to her grave with the idea that I was still somehow guilty of a crime that had never been committed; nary the hint of acknowledgement or apology.

The second tale involved my work for a restaurant several years later. I was working for a concern run by a partnership of two gentlemen (term used very loosely, mind you.) Despite being in a management position I was never entrusted with any financial responsibility or authority, but at some point it was announced that some money had gone missing from a safe in the restaurant (and at no time was I ever privy to the combination thereof.) I was told that everyone on the staff was being asked to take a lie detector test at the local police station. Despite the fact that this was a blatant lie, as I found out later – I was the only one who ever had to go down – I remember the experience with such distaste that it has remained with me forever after. I was “interviewed” by a lieutenant of the local police force; I’m tempted to mention his name because he was an asshole, but he’s dead now and de mortuis nil nisi bonum and all that.

I got asked all sorts of embarrassing, probing questions, many of which had nothing to do with the event they were investigating. There is no more unsettling feeling than to sit and be told that you’re a criminal, and that they know you’re a criminal, and that they’re going to find the truth no matter what it takes… when you know for certain that you are innocent and uninvolved. At the end of the procedure, Lieutenant Douchebag told me that my results were “highly deceptive,” and I went away wondering if I was going to be thrown in the clink for something I had neither done nor even ever considered. But I got a small taste of what it must be like to be interrogated in this way; I cannot imagine the emotional distress felt by the people in the above-mentioned article. A lot of them were clearly petty criminals, but they didn’t deserve to have their lives scarred and/or ruined for something they never did.

Relevant: Do Lie Detectors Work?

The lie detector can be considered a modern variant of the old technique of trial by ordeal. A suspected witch was thrown into a raging river on the premise that if she floated she was harnessing demonic powers.

The takeaway for me is that it is far too easy to put people in a situation where they feel vulnerable and powerless, and hammer away at them until they begin to doubt things they know for certain and accept things that they know nothing about. I suspect that with training, one could inoculate oneself against such techniques to a certain extent, but really, what’s the payoff for the average person who will not find themselves in such a position? Whatever the case, it’s disturbing.

The Old Wolf has spoken. Maybe.

 

There is no “weird trick.”

Posted on by The Old Wolf

 

I’ve written about this bit of Internet stupidity before. It boggles my mind that scummy advertisers continue to use this, but it must generate revenue, or they wouldn’t do it.

Lower My Bills [1] is one of the worst offenders.

You see, I never encounter ads on my desktop machine; Ad Blocker Plus and a few other good extensions take care of that. My smartphone is not so lucky. Here’s an example; check out the ad with the little T-Rex running across it as an attention-getter below.

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Now I don’t fall for such rubbish, but today I decided to jump down the rabbit hole just to see where it leads. I was taken to screen after screen requesting my personal information; the usual stuff about what cars I had, how I use them, and what kind of coverage I wanted. They also wanted my address, my phone number, my date of birth, my email address, and a whole bunch of other stuff. Naturally, as with Nigerian scammers, I provided bogus information for everything.

Finally, I got to the last page, where I was promised my free results, and – supposedly – the “ridiculously easy trick”.

2014-05-13_07-37-43

 

Before we click, let’s look at that text disclaimer:

By clicking the button above you agree to be matched with up to 8 partners and/or providers from the LMB Partner Network and their agents and partners and for them and/or us to contact or market to you (including through automated and/or pre-recorded messages/means, e.g. automated telephone dialing systems and text messaging) about insurance information via telephone, mobile device (including MSM and MMS), and/or email, even if your telephone number or email address is on a corporate, state, or the National Do Not Call Registry, and you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. You understand that your consent is not required as a condition to purchase a good or service.

Now that’s just scary. If you enter your real data, hoping to learn a “ridiculously easy trick” or even get quotes for low-cost insurance, this is the kind of marketing you will get by mail, by phone, by email, and on your cell phone:

Moving-picture-Niagara-Fall-waterfall-animated-gif

That’s right. A virtual Niagara Falls [2] worth of spamvertising, and you’ve just given these putrescent scumballs your permission to do it.

That’s how Lower My Bills works: T’hey gather your personal information, and sell it to every single possible entity on earth that wants to spam you, who will in turn sell it to the rest of the universe. They offer no other goods or services, even if they claim to do so. This is the height of disreputable, dishonorable marketing, and their ads infest the net like a plague of locusts.

If that’s not scary enough, look at that last sentence:

You understand that your consent is not required as a condition to purchase a good or service.

This means that you have given them permission to sell you their and their partners’ excrement without your explicit agreement, thus opening the door to fraudulent charges on your credit card.

Now let’s see what all that PII got me:

2014-05-13_07-38-26

Yup. Exactly nothing. They suggest a few providers, but no “ridiculously easy trick,” no promised quote, nothing. But they would have had all my information, and that information would result (usually within minutes) in a flood of calls, emails, texts, and other ongoing hqiz from people wanting to sell me everything under the sun.

Do yourself a favor. Any time you see that “one weird trick” or anything like it, realize that you’re dealing with a borderline criminal operation, and stay as far away from such drones and scumbags as you possibly can. If you see Lower My Bills, run like hell in the other direction. Oh, and spread the word, too; if you have vulnerable loved ones who are not terribly computer-savvy, make sure they understand this.

The Old Wolf has spoken.

[1] Have a look at this lovely entry at Ripoff Report; also check the Wikipedia entry on this shady outfit.

[2] Slowly I turn!

Dangerdust

Posted on by The Old Wolf

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Two students. Not much spare time. But a universe of creativity at their fingertips.

Meet Dangerdust.

Despite our overwhelming workload at Columbus College of Art & Design we bring it upon ourselves to create a chalkboard every week. We have taken over the chalkboard on the third floor of Crane and every Monday a new board appears.

I happen to love the work above more than perhaps any, but that’s just a personal preference because I love Dr. Tyson. Everything they do is filled with awesome.

The Old Wolf has spoken.

K’minyan Tov

Posted on by The Old Wolf

I have long loved and respected the work of Art Spiegelman, author of Maus and Maus II, two graphic novels which autobiographically recount the experiences of his father Vladek through World War II and the years previous.

One thing in his account puzzled me, though – the exchange recounted in the panels below, just after Vladek arrives at Auschwitz.

Spiegelman

I had no idea why the priest said that 17 in Hebrew was “kminyan tov,” because seventeen is “shiv’a ‘asar.” The internet didn’t help, because every reference to “k’minyan tov” led back to Spiegelman’s work. I was stumped. It turns out I just didn’t know enough about Hebrew or kabbalistic customs.

After letting the matter rest for about five years, during which interval I began a study of modern Hebrew, I returned to it with a vengeance and did some more digging.

The Polish priest was learned in the ways of gematria, or the mystical assignment of numerical values to Hebrew letters, and divining meaning from how words add up; I first became aware of gematria when I read The Chosen by Chaim Potok.

I was coming at my puzzle all wrong, assuming that minyan was referring to the quorum of ten Jewish male adults required for certain religious obligations. The word itself also means “count,” with “k’minyan” meaning “like the count of.” That expression appears to be used almost exclusively in referring to values in gematria. Look at this post in a forum:

A week or two ago, a posting on the number of brakhot in shmoneh esrei suggested, IIRC, something like that the addition of birkat ha-minim in E”Y changed the 18 to 19. It appears, however that in E”Y there were originally 17 b’rakhot, gematria tov and the addition of birkat ha-minim made it 18, k’minyan chai.

This entire sentence is far over my head in terms of understanding the context, but to have found the expression in an external source was significant. It seems then that this phrase can be read “like the count of ____”, whatever number is being referred to.

Thus the priest reads Vladek’s number (175113) and notes that the first two numbers are 17 – with “טוב” (tov, meaning “good”) being the numbers 9+ 6+ 2 (each Hebrew letter is assigned a value corresponding to its position in the alphabet). Hence “tov” has the value 17; “k’minyan tov” can be interpreted in this case as “like the count of ‘good’.) This would be seen as a good omen. Another interpretation I found indicates that 17 would indicate the 10 men necessary for a minyan, plus seven more, making it a “good minyan” or a “strong prayer group.”  I can’t speak to the accuracy of this interpretation, but it’s interesting nonetheless – this was the first thing that occurred to me, and it didn’t make sense. Now it does. Sorta.

Vladek’s priest friend notices that 1+7+5+1+1+3 equal 18, and the Hebrew word for “life” (חי – chai) is composed of the numbers 10 + 8, or 18, the number referred to in the quote above, which could be read as “like the count of ‘life’.” And this was sufficient for Vladek to express the feeling that he had been given another life. Vladek escaped, and the priest was never seen again.

I don’t think I have the intellectual discipline to pursue this any farther, but my curiosity has been silenced. At least I understand the basic meaning of what Spiegelman was relating in this scene, and that will have to do.

The Old Wolf has spoken.

(For what it’s worth, “Old Wolf” in English gematria is 522, which has the same value as Truth, Birthday, Stephen, Russia, Muslim, Bill Gates, Twelve, Justice, Victor, Vincent, Rand Paul, Priest, Person, Nothing, Lotus, Hail Mary, Yahuwah, Street, Stealing, The Sun, Blessing, Elishone, Cnaan Aviv, Noahs Ark, Elohiym, Lee Vayle, Dustin, Democracy, Praises, Potato, Euro Bay, String, Taav Aaleph, Myth U, Ninety, Baptist, Crackpot, Company, Inside Job, Architect, God Of Buddha, Different, Cotton, Buddhist, The Eyes, Chin Woo, Diaper Dude, Project, Break The Ice, Manifest, Charlemagne, Helsinki, Mackenzie, Gram Of Fat, Oh My God, Gnostic, Archigonic, Samskarda, Tornado, Forecast’, Paternal, Ho Chi Minh, Natural, Black On Black, Dream Logic, Swedish, Sonnet, Mind Of God, Cortez, Paul Rand, Indeed Jobs, Shelter, My Garden, Get Hay At, Consider, King Of All, Vietnam C, All Is One, Veronica, Punish, Fulfilled, Sam Bowie, The Gilded Age, Whether, Def Leppard, Get A T Hay, Pat Crock, טרוטה Truth, Canaanites, Dependent, Lumpy, Fallout, Frighten, Happily, Sticky, Pell Mell, The Mayan, Idiocracy, Pitagora, and Got Milk. Make of that what you will.)